weight of these stomach contents was 0.59 pounds and the greatest 1.77 pounde. The ana- 
lyses have been accepted as they were furnished, without any uttempt to evaluate the acca 
racy of the identifications. Salmonoid fish have never occurred in seal stomachs from the 
North American coast in such a high proportion, but as etated above, these animals were 
taken in a salmon trout net where they would have ready accese to these fish. 
All other information on fur seal damages in the files of the Bureau of Fisheries 
is based almost entirely on the claims and complainte of fishermen. Fishermen do not 
bother to look at the stomach contents of seala that fall into their hands, nor would they 
be able to identify accurately the partly digested material found in euch stomachs. When 
seale are Observed where salmon fishing is in progress, the fishermen state on circum 
stantial evidence that the seals are feeding on salmon. The fish species most frequently 
named by Japanese fishermen as prey of fur seals are salmon, sharks, rock fish, sardines, 
and herring. The frequent reference to sharks is interesting, because no sharks have ever 
been recorded in the 1,172 seal stomachs examined for the Korth American coast although 
emall dogfish sharks are abundant from California to Alaska. Other reports demonstrate 
confusion in distinguishing between hair seals and fur seals. Hokkaido fishernen complain 
of fur seal damage to salmon chiefly from May to September, but no fur seals occur there 
between July and November, The fishermen in Iwate Prefecture complain that fur seals 
occasionally take salmon trout from the hooke of hand-line fishermen, a type of thievery 
much more characteristic of the hair seals, which are far more plentiful than the fur seal 
close to shore where these fishermen operate. 
Of the 22 fur seal stomachs collected during the 1949 fur seal study by Natural 
Resources Section investigators, 17 (77 percent) contained food, 13/ as shown in Table G: 
TABLE G. ~ STOMACH CONTENTS OF 22 FUR SEALS 
Percent 
Containing 
Item 
Lantern fish 
Pollack 
Unidentified 
fish 
Humber stomachs 
exanined a/ 

a/ Seventee:: contained food, five were empty. 
l3/ Incidentally, none of these stomache contained the pebbles almost always found in 
stomachs examined on the Pribilof rookeries. Why the seals swallow theee stones has 
never been explained satisfactorily, but apparently they eliminate them after leaving 
the islands for a pelagic existence. 
39 
